Salman Rushdie

“Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one.” - Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie became a household name in 1988 with the publication of The Satanic Verses, a highly controversial book that angered many readers who found its references to Islam and the prophet Muhammad blasphemous. The tome resulted in violent protests around the world and a death sentence issued by Ayatollah Khomeini against Rushdie and his publishers. “I think there is nothing wrong with the idea that fiction is a matter of life and death,” he says. “It's not just me. Fiction has always been treated this way.” His latest book, The Enchantress of Florence, is in stores now.

MAGNETISM

There’s something about a fugitive that turns women on. How else can you explain Salman Rusdie’s astounding success with the fairer sex? Since being sentenced to death by the Ayatollah Khomeini, this disheveled scribe has been married three times (to Marianne Wiggins, Elizabeth West and Padma Lakshmi, a gorgeous Emmy Award-nominated television host and model). Taking one look at Padma Lakshmi is almost enough to make us want to write a highly inflammatory book of our own.

SUCCESS

Name five novelists as quickly as you can. It’s harder than you’d think, isn’t it? Although Salman Rushdie may not be the world’s most accomplished author, he has achieved a level of notoriety unmatched by many of his talented peers thanks to the maelstrom of controversy created by The Satanic Verses. While that one book has justifiably defined his career, this award-winning writer has also released 13 other works, including an additional seven novels, five works of non-fiction and one collection of short stories. Regardless of whether you choose to embrace or discredit his writing, there’s little denying that his contribution to literature and his ongoing defense of free speech have made him one of the most valuable voices of his generation.

Salman Rushdie Biography

Ahmed Salman Rushdie was born June 19, 1947, in Bombay, India. The grandson of an accomplished Urdu poet, he grew up surrounded by strong literary influences. “Everyone around me was fond of fooling around with words,” he recalls. “It was certainly common in my family, but I think it is typical of Bombay, and maybe of India, that there is a sense of play in the way people use language.”

salman rushdie goes to england

Salman Rushdie was given the opportunity to expand his horizons in his early teens when he was sent to the prestigious Rugby School in Warwickshire, England and later to King's College, where he studied history. His education gave him a solid foundation in the liberal arts, and he soon found work as a copywriter for prominent English advertising agencies such as Ogilvy & Mather and Charles Barker.

salman rushdie makes his literary debut with grimus

Although copywriting paid his bills, Salman Rushdie longed to be a novelist, and he finally went to work for himself in 1975 with the publication of Grimus, a somewhat uneven effort that drew heavily upon Sufi, Hindu, Christian, and Norse mythologies. Unfortunately the book was generally ignored by the public, and Salman Rushdie went back to the drawing board to create a more universally appealing work.

salman rushdie wins booker prize for midnight’s children

Salman Rushdie emerged again in 1981 with the publication of Midnight’s Children, a lively comic allegory of Indian history. The book was universally praised by readers and critics alike, and he received the Booker Prize, a prestigious literary honor awarded annually for the best original full-length novel written in the English language. Midnight’s Children has since become a standard work in many university literature classes, and it has been adapted to the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Next up for Salman Rushdie was Shame, an extravagant and sometimes exasperating tale about Pakistani politics. Published in 1983, the amusing book was awarded France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger for Best Foreign Book, and it was a runner-up for that year’s Booker Prize. Salman Rushdie struck again in 1987 with The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey, a dazzling work of non-fiction that documented his travels in the Central American country.

salman rushdie incites worldwide riots with the satanic verses

Although Salman Rushdie had already established himself as a literary force, he became a cultural phenomenon in 1988 with the publication of The Satanic Verses, a highly controversial book that angered many readers who found its references to Islam and the prophet Muhammad blasphemous. The tome quickly took on a life of its own, leading to violent protests around the world. Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini was so outraged by The Satanic Verse’s contentious text that he issued a fatwa against Salman Rushdie and his publishers on February 14, 1989, urging his followers to kill them on sight. An aide to Khomeini later sweetened the deal by offering a generous million-dollar reward to the man responsible for ending Rushdie's life.

salman rushdie goes into hiding

The fatwa forced Salman Rushdie into hiding, and he spent much of the next decade out of the public eye. Despite the heightened tension, Salman Rushdie claims he never truly feared for his life. “It never felt like fear; it felt more like disorientation and bewilderment and confusion, and of course these are very bad emotions out of which to write,” he says. “So it derailed my life for a while, and I had to climb back onto the rails.”

Salman Rushdie bounced back in 1990 with the publication of Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Written for his son, this wildly creative children’s book was praised by the New York Times for its remarkable “comic energy and lively verbal invention." Salman Rushdie emerged twice more during the 1990s with the publication of The Moor’s Last Sigh in 1995 and The Ground Beneath Her Feet in 1999. Both books cemented his reputation as one of the world’s most eloquent and poignant wordsmiths.

salman rushdie delights critics with shalimar the clown

Although still cautious, Salman Rushdie began making more public appearances during the late 1990s as he attempted to re-assimilate himself into society. He also continued to produce sterling works of literature such as Shalimar the Clown. Published in 2005, this politically charged page-turner was embraced by fans and critics alike, and it was a finalist for that year’s Whitbread Book Awards. He received another tremendous honor in 2007 when he was awarded British knighthood for his services to literature. Salman Rushdie’s latest book, The Enchantress of Florence, is in stores now.

20 years since The Satanic Verses were first published, Salman Rushdie feels that his magnum opus is now better understood than ever. “You have to wait for the hype to go away, whether it's positive or negative,” he explains. “It's a sort of dreadful paradox, because you need all that noise when you're publishing a book to bring people to it in the first place. Then the noise gets in the way.”